Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen

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What is analytical meditation?

The first step in a session of analytical meditation thus is the proper attitude and motivation. The second step is to sit in the correct posture. For analytical meditation, the physical posture is straightforward. Simply sit with crossed legs, keeping your back as straight as possible while at the same time staying relaxed. The upper part of the body should feel light, while the lower part of the body should feel more weighty and stable.

After taking our seat with good meditation posture, we begin with the threefold cleansing of the stale breath. Hold your hands palms down on your knees. Place your thumbs at the base of your ring fingers. As you slowly and deeply inhale through your nostrils, slowly curl your fingers around your thumbs so that your hands are in loose fists with your thumbs tucked inside. Exhale through your nostrils. Do not force your exhalation; it should be gentle and slow, with some added force at the end. As you exhale, extend your fingers and thumbs at once, but without violence. Then slowly inhale again and close your hands as before. Do this inhalation and exhalation three times. On the first breath, imagine that you are gathering and expelling all physical obstacles to meditation. On the second breath, gather and expel all emotional obstacles. On the third breath, gather and expel all mental obstacles. Be sure to maintain your physical posture, especially when you exhale, staying centered and upright in your seat.

Following the cleansing breaths, we engage in a brief session of resting meditation. We do this meditation in order to free our minds of coarse agitation or torpor. One’s awareness may be scattered or outwardly oriented, and we want to draw it inward. Or we may be feeling drowsy and need to rouse ourselves in order to practice well. We want to bring our minds to a point of stillness and clarity.

Focus your attention on the coming and going of your breath. One common method of working with the breath is to count the breath, one count for each cycle of inhalation and exhalation. Count from one to ten and then start over. Or keep counting as high as you like. When you lose the count, begin again. Another method you might use is to relax on the inhalation, and when you exhale, mentally recite a long hung with the out breath.

Bring your mind to rest. When you have the feeling that your mind has come to a state of stillness, then recall that now is the time to do analytical meditation. Through resting meditation, you establish a calm and lucid mind. Arise within that calm and lucid mind and begin your analysis.

Sometimes when we reach the point where the mind is resting, we might want to stay in that peaceful place, and we do not wish to engage in analytical meditation. When this happens, it is important to give rise to the aspiration to engage in analytical meditation.

Lastly, when we do analytical meditation, which involves effort and reasoning, it is very important to be mindful that one’s awareness remains in the center of one’s body. Otherwise, we will just engage in a superficial conceptual investigation rather than in genuine analytical meditation.

When your mind is resting and clear, proceed to the analysis. How do we conduct the analysis? We select an appropriate example of the object of analysis and examine it using our reasoning.

~ Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen

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The Summer Institute 2018 will be held from July 6 – August 2, 2018 in Bellingham, Washington! Join us for another summer of incredible teachings.

The two primary tracks at the Summer Institute are complementary and feed back into each other. The Shedra track emphasizes learning the crucial distinctions about mind and processes of consciousness – like a decoder key to the pith instructions for training on the path. The Gomdra track emphasizes meditative practice as the method to discover, experience, and integrate new possibilities for being, sanity, and wisdom. As learning and insight develop in the Shedra, this enhances meditative experience. As meditative experience deepens, more advanced studies become relevant and meaningful.

Teachers at the Summer Institute include:Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, leading master of the Kagyü & Nyingma lineages and founder of Nitartha Institute and Nalandabodhi.Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Naropa University and head teacher at Nalandabodhi.Dr. Karl Brunnhölzl, translator and teacher at Nalandabodhi
… and many more eastern and western senior teachers & scholars!

We’re pleased to announce that the dates and new venue for the 2016 Nitartha Summer Institute have been confirmed. Mark your calendars! Friday, July 15 through Saturday, August 13, 2016 at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

This year’s complete summer program will run for four weeks from Friday, July 15th through Saturday, August 13th, 2016. We anticipate being able to offer courses from three of our academic departments:

Department of Buddhist Studies (BUD)

Department of Languages (LAN)

Department of Healing (HEA)

In addition, we will again offer a Mahamudra Practice Intensive (Gomdra) program for qualified students, similar to what we have offered at the past two Summer Institutes in 2014 and 2015.

To optimize the teaching and learning environment as much as possible, the four different departments/programs will run in tandem on two parallel schedules: one on a two 2-week session schedule, and the other on a three 9-day module schedule. The program dates arranged by department and session/module are as follows:

Schedule for the Department of Buddhist Studies (BUD), and Department of Languages (LAN) — two 2-week sessions:

Schedule for the Mahamudra Practice Intensive (Gomdra) and Department of Healing (HEA) — three 9-day modules:

Module 1: Friday, July 15 to Saturday, July 23
Travel day: Sunday, July 24Module 2: Monday, July 25 to Tuesday, August 2
Travel day: Wednesday, August 3Module 3: Thursday, August 4 to Friday, August 12
Travel day: Saturday, August 13

It is planned that Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche will be present for Modules 1 and 2 and will continue his teachings on the topic of Mahamudra Vipashyana from the Ninth Karmapa’s Ocean of Definitive Meaning. Please note: Rinpoche’s talks will not be open to the public and only students who meet the Mahamudra study and practice requirements will be permitted to attend Rinpoche’s talks.

NEW VENUE! To better accommodate the growing needs of students and faculty, and also due to a variety of other considerations, Nitartha Summer Institute 2016 will be hosted at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada!

Additional program details, such as registration, tuition rates, housing costs, etc., are forthcoming. For now, please save the dates and further details will be posted on our website and announced shortly.

In the interim, should you have any burning questions that just can’t wait, please correspond with our 2016 Summer Program Co-Coordinators, Christine Hwang and Crista Lawson at: summerprogram@nitarthainstitute.org.

Ring in the New Year with Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen!

Acharya works closely with Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche in all aspects of leadership for the Institute, particularly in the design of our curriculum, and, after Ponlop Rinpoche, is the Institute’s most revered teacher. He will be teaching on Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness, a weekend program at Nalanda West on January 8, 9 & 10. Don’t miss this great opportunity!

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche founded Nitartha Institute in 1996, under the guidance of Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche. The parent organization is Nitartha International, an educational organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibet’s heritage of religious and philosophical texts. Though the focus of our curriculum is the Kagyü and Nyingma understanding of the Dharma, the Institute upholds the importance of non-sectarianism and appreciation of the many forms of Buddhism. Students of any background are welcome and encouraged to attend—the Institute is open to all who are interested in deepening their study and practice of Buddhism.